The L8 Bloomers

When I think about it, I have always mentored young girls. It started in church as I was a youth leader and I was very much engaged with the girls. I wanted them to really strive to be ambitious about anything that they want to achieve. I have always had a passion for mentoring young girls, I’m also very passionate about business, I read this whole book on business for dummies, read it over and over and I loved it.

Now with a passion for mentorship and business, I noticed the gap or lack of mentors or role models especially black women as mentors and role models in the corporate space. The ones that were visible at the time were mostly entertainers; the likes of Beyoncé, Destiny’s child and you know, everyone was mainly in the entertainment industry and the media. The only person I really came across was Michelle Obama and I bought her little book on wisdom.

I had graduated from law school and I already knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer, so I decided to do my masters in international business. I always knew I was going to do something that was global. I had been travelling to Nigeria from London more frequently and I needed a change, so I decided to move to Nigeria permanently. I moved to Nigeria on the basis that I was going to start a mentoring scheme, but I actually didn’t start because when I moved I realized that things weren’t exactly very simple here, and to make things worse I didn’t know anyone.

This was in 2011, there were not many processes in play, and even the things that could help you amplify your work i.e. social media wasn’t really popping. So I kinda just fell into work. I was working with Unilever which was a great experience, then I moved to a consulting firm and then to an investment bank. Now, during this time, I was saying to myself “what am I going to do with myself, with my career? I don’t want to stop business” but I was really just going with the flow and was really just trying to aim for a high position, which is really the general goal in the corporate world, everyone strives to enter a high position and that was literally my focus too. I wasn’t really thinking about growing as a person. I was just like ‘aim for this really high role and collect the money’.

So I started working at this investment bank, it was the worst experience of my life and also one of the best in terms of what stretched me. I reported directly to the M.D, and working with him completely crushed my confidence. I didn’t realize on the job, but 2 years after leaving and I have spoken to a lot of my colleagues at the time who have said that they are also rebuilding their confidence from working in that office.

In between the madness of the confidence crippling job, I was writing for a career site, but that career site was only speaking to a particular group of people- white women and I felt like it would be good to tell our stories as black people. I was to post stories for white women but as much as I love their stories, I wanted to see myself on their platform as well so I said let me just start my own. This was before I left my full time job, my husband helped me, he literally went through like 20 names, and I eventually came up with ‘For Working Ladies’, I went on LinkedIn, researching female journalists and writers, I would just request a connection and I would send them like a little description of what I was trying to build,

“Our website isn’t up but am trying to build a website for women in business, who are trying to grow in their career, we are going to talk about XYZ, healthy living, would you like to join?”

Literally like 20 women joined and they were writing 2 articles a week, submitting them, and the website wasn’t even live, but to me that was a validation that the website is needed. The fact that people are willing to write without even seeing a website and they don’t even know me, gave me the confidence to believe that this is very possible.

Just before we launched, we had about 25 to 28 articles ready, I knew how to use WordPress a little but I did a lot of research. That was the period I learnt more about digital marketing so I’m a self-taught digital marketing person. I watched YouTube channels on how to grow your business, like that was literally the time I invested in myself for the purpose of growing For Working Ladies, and also for the purpose of helping my friends that have businesses as well.

When it came to the interviews, I would do that myself, and so I reached out to founders, asking them their stories, asking the women their take on roles like scientists, how they get to where they are? How did they decide that this is what they want to be? And you find that really truly, everyone knew what they wanted to be in the beginning but along the way they fell into something else or they changed their minds. I think it’s really important for people to know that along the way, as you mature it’s okay to change your career path, that doesn’t mean that you are confused, you just want to do something else and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I feel that there’s this narrative that you need to know what you want to do and it’s fixed and if you don’t, that means you are confused, you don’t have your life together and it’s not true. I got that from a lot of people’s stories as well, some people will be in one career and branch out to start a completely different brand and that to me was really interesting. There’s a girl I met the other day, she’s a pharmacist but she has a brand that is all about money, teaches people about money, teaches them how to save, how to invest and do other things. I guess it’s just tuning in on your interest and using that to drive whatever you want to build on your platform.

The website was growing and I went back to London and I felt like okay, people are currently asking for events, where do I start? So I started attending other events, and I was just going to people who had similar platforms, just started attending their events. I decided to reach out to some women and told them that I was planning my event and asked if they could join my panel and then in January, the event happened and over a 100 women came. I was so blown away, I was so overwhelmed, I literally wanted the ground to open up. 

Let’s talk about asking for help, is it something you have struggled with?

Definitely, asking for help requires you to be vulnerable and we don’t like to be vulnerable cos it’s like if you’re being vulnerable it could sometimes feel like you are ashamed of something.

Is that how you feel personally?

To an extent yes because it feels like that’s the way we have been conditioned to think about it, about certain things. For example, in terms of looking for a new job, it was like if you are looking for a new job maybe you are broke though that isn’t even the case but that’s what the narrative is sometimes, so I didn’t want to go around looking for a new job, I didn’t want to start telling people cause I felt ashamed about it but I didn’t know why.

Pip Jamieson, who is the founder of The Dots, once told me that her business is where it is today because she asked so many people for help, she wouldn’t be where she is without them. She said if I need help for something, the worst thing they can say is no, but what she has realized is that a lot of people actually want to help so I should ask for help, even if it’s For Working Ladies or if it’s with getting a job and in the moment I did ask for help she made so many introductions, so now I can be picky and say no, I don’t want to go for that one.

The fact I even have that opportunity because I asked for help has encouraged me.  I guess I’m not used to being vulnerable, and that’s just not with asking for help but with life generally, I don’t want to be put in that place feeling like I’m needy. Someone spoke to me about the power of vulnerability, it’s a Ted talk by Brene Brown, I listened to it this morning and I guess I never really thought that about myself. I struggle with being vulnerable and that can affect you in every area really, your business, your career, your relationships, your friendships and it has, so am now trying to turn it around and understand that being vulnerable doesn’t mean that you are weak, it’s about showing more of yourself and bearing more of yourself to the world or to whoever you are speaking to and there’s nothing wrong with that and there’s actually power in it.

What will you say for you is the hardest thing about adulting and like kind of coming into your own?

Now that I’m in my early thirties, I really think that I’m more secure and I appreciate that I have grown and now with my own experience, I understand how someone early on in their career might be feeling, it has caused me to have more empathy with people who come to my events that might be early on in their career or mid-way in their career and feel that they need to have certain things in place like, “oh I need to have this perfect job, I need to get married, my friends are doing this”, I understand how they feel cos I feel like there’s a period pre thirty where you feel you need to get everything in place and there’s that narrative, that by the time you hit 30, you have ‘expired’.

I love that nowadays, women are owning the fact that, you don’t have to be married at 30, you can change careers mid-30s, early 20s, live your life, there are no rules to life. I really appreciate my growth and being able to use it to be more empathetic to the women around me that are also on this journey in terms of their career. I think when you are building a community, having empathy is really important, especially in work and business because those are very sensitive things for people.

Did you have any naysayers if so, what were the things they said and also has there been any point where you wanted to give-up, if so why?

In the early days, it was like oh it’s just a blog, but I never referred to it as a blog, I saw it as a platform.  A resource where women can get help with their career and business and now it has evolved to more than just that, it’s now something that I can monetize through brand partnerships, something that allows me get paid. In the early days a lot of people were like “what are you doing?” Especially the people who aren’t your target audience, when you are starting a community like this the questioning can make you doubt yourself, so your ‘Why’ really needs to be your driver.

I felt like, there are people that need this, I needed this. I didn’t have a mentor and hearing people’s stories helped me navigate my way through life. When I interview people, I understand how they built their businesses and how they are growing their careers that gives me a personal sort of experience that I can help myself and help other people. One of the main things that drove me was that there’s power in storytelling, I know people love stories especially peer to peer stories.

In terms of wanting to give up, I feel it every day there’s a lot of pressure trying to keep the momentum and live your life at the same time. Especially as I don’t have a team, it can feel lonely as well when you’re the only one making the decisions. Sometimes you see other communities growing really fast and getting brand partnerships and doing really well, in those moments you have to force yourself to refocus on your “Why” and creating impact. Don’t get carried away by the hype. Everyone wants to be featured here and there but if it doesn’t bring about change, what’s the point? It’s important to stay focused on what you’re building.